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An
Uneasy Truce: The Two Koreas, 1953-2003
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Seoul,
Korea newspaper (Dong-a Ilbo) showing the recent summit meeting
between President Bush and the new President of South Korea.
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The
Korean peninsula is the only place in the world where the interests
and security concerns of the United States, China, Japan, and Russia
directly intersect. Yet, despite the pressures of the major powers,
the independent-minded Koreans (North and South) have demanded to
take their future into their own hands as never before.
In
the years following the 1953 armistice, the two Koreas have followed
dramatically different paths. South Korea became an economic powerhouse,
with the world's eleventh-largest economy and one of the world's
primary producers of ships, automobiles, electronics, steel, and
other goods. Its gross domestic product approaches one trillion
dollars, and its per capita income is about $20,000 per year, twenty
times that of North Korea.
North
Korea developed its own brand of communist Confucianism. It remains
militarily powerful but economically isolated. Since the end of
the Cold War it has lost the lavish subsidies it formerly received
from the Soviet Union. And its once-close relationship with China
has eroded as China becomes more interested in markets than Marxism.
In the mid-1990s North Korea turned to the outside world for humanitarian
assistance. Famine and poverty plague North Korea, periodically
forcing it into a corner. Recently the North has taken small steps
to reconcile with the South, while using the threat of its nuclear
capability to gain concessions from the United States.
Sections
within the exhibit include:
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Week
By Week
Accounts & Official Documents
Photographs
Educational
Activities
Sound
Clips
Oral
Histories
External
Links
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